A Body to Die For Read Online Free PDF

who’d been stalking her. But an enraged and/or
     jilted lover was the strongest possibility. Whoever he was, he certainly hadn’t been expecting anyone to come barging into
     the spa after hours. I felt a chill as I considered how close I’d come to bumping into him as I’d headed across the parking
     lot earlier that night.
    Danny returned, carrying a tray with cups and a teapot. She had made some lemony kind of thing that I knew didn’t have a single
     molecule of caffeine in it, but I accepted a cup anyway just to give myself something to do. The cop declined. He looked more
     like a Dr Pepper man.
    Danny parked herself at the desk and announced she was going to check out the spa’s schedule for the night.
    “We had only two nine o’clock appointments tonight,” she said after she’d turned on the computer and found the place. “Both
     were female clients. Anna was scheduled to do one. A therapist named Eric had the other.”
    “Were the women guests at the inn?”
    “Yes. We don’t take day spa guests after seven.”
    The cop shot us a look that said we shouldn’t be gabbing with one another about the case. I went back to my thoughts, replaying
     the evening over and over in my mind. A half hour had passed and there was no sign of anyone coming to talk to us. I fought
     off the growing urge to doze and closed my eyes just to rest them. The next thing I knew, I was being roused from sleep.
    A strange man stood over me, saying my name. He was about five ten, trim, in his mid-thirties, I guessed, though his hair
     was nearly all gray—as if it belonged on someone in his forties or fifties.
    “I’m sorry I startled you,” he said. “I’m Detective Supervisor Beck. I’d like to ask you a few questions now.” He was dressed
     in gray pants, a gray wool crewneck sweater over a white shirt, and a brown suede jacket, a little bit dressy, suggesting
     that he’d been off duty tonight and called to the scene. I realized suddenly that he was probably the guy I’d noticed earlier
     climbing out of the car in the parking lot. At the time, I’d assumed, because of the hair, that he was middle-aged.
    “Of course,” I said, pushing myself to a sitting position as I tried to unstick my eyes. “Where is everybody, anyway?” Neither
     Danny nor the uniformed cop was in the room.
    “Everyone but Mrs. Hubner has been escorted home. She’s lying down next door. She wanted to wait for you.”
    “Gosh, I must have been out to the world.”
    “Do you need a minute?” he asked, though he didn’t sound as though he cared to wait that long.
    “No, no. I’m fine.”
    “Let’s get started, then,” he said crisply. “You’re a guest here?” He pulled a straight-backed chair from against the wall
     to the area in front of me and sat down, making me feel like a shrinking Alice in Wonderland in the armchair.
    I explained my friendship with Danny and the reason for my trip up from Manhattan. As I spoke, he pulled a notepad from the
     pocket of his leather jacket. The jacket lifted slightly, and I noticed that when he’d belted his pants, he’d missed a loop.
     Maybe he’d actually been in bed when he got the call about the murder.
    “So what were you doing in the spa at eleven-thirty at night?”
    I knew he’d gone through all of this with Piper, but he wasn’t going to let on to me that he knew anything. He would want
     to hear my own version of events, step by step. I told him about my massage, missing my watch, talking to Natalie, her calling
     Piper, and Piper coming over to let me into the spa.
    “And this couldn’t wait till morning?”
    Okay, here we go, I thought, just as I’d expected. I took a breath and urged myself not to overexplain.
    “Well, it’s a watch with a great deal of sentimental value,” I said, “and I knew I couldn’t sleep until I found it.”
    “So take me through what happened in the spa—from the beginning. Did you and Piper go in together?”
    “Yes, we went in the